I thought maybe they’d get over it, so I bought an ale and sat down at an empty table and waited for someone to come over and join me, but no one did.
It wasn’t much fun.
When I finished my ale I came back here and sat around being utterly miserable. I felt completely left out; it was as bad as when the village kids wouldn’t play with me because I was so big and strong. I didn’t exactly cry myself to sleep, but I sniffled a little.
The next day all my barracks mates were back, laughing and joking and feeling good. I made some remarks, and Kelder Arl’s son said, 'Well, Shennar, at some of the houses there are boys for rent, too.' And everyone laughed.
I didn’t think it was very funny, myself. And I certainly didn’t take it seriously. I don’t understand why the men all go to the brothels, anyway — they’re mostly decent people, and could find women elsewhere. Some of them have women elsewhere, but they go to Whore Street anyway.
Men are strange.
But it did get me thinking that what I needed was some nice young man I could visit every sixnight. It wouldn’t really do to bed with one of my fellow soldiers; I wouldn’t feel right about that. And besides, most of them aren’t that nice. I wanted a civilian.
So I started looking for one. I wore my civilian clothes and went to the most respectable inns and shops and tried to act like a lady.
Honestly, Mother, you’d think that in a city this size, it wouldn’t be hard to find a good man, but I certainly didn’t manage it. For sixnight after sixnight I looked, and I found plenty of drunkards and foul-smelling wretches, and big stupid oxen, and men who might have been all right if they weren’t so small I was afraid that I’d break them in half if I ever hugged them.
And, well, I gave up, and here I am writing this letter while the men are at the brothels again.
What is it that makes them so eager to spend all their money there?
Mother, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to seal this up for the messenger, and then I’m going to go down to Whore Street and ask someone. Not one of my barracks mates, but someone who works there. I’ll just ask why the men all go there every sixnight.
Maybe if I can figure that out, it’ll give me some idea what I should do!
Love,
Shennar
Dear Mother,
I met the most wonderful man! And you’ll never guess where.
I’d gone down to Whore Street, the way I told you I was planning to, and at first I just walked up and down the street — it’s only seven blocks long — just looking at the brothels and listening to the people. But after a while that wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I got up my nerve and went up to one of the doors and knocked.
This woman who wasn’t wearing anything but a chiffon skirt and a feather in her hair answered, and took one look at me, and said, 'I’m sorry, but you must have the wrong place.' And she tried to shut the door.
Well, I wasn’t going to give up that easily; I was afraid that I’d never be able to get up the nerve to try again if I once backed down. So I put my foot in the door and pushed back.
I tried to tell her I just wanted to talk to someone, but she wasn’t listening; instead she was calling, 'Tabar! Tabar, quick!'
I pushed in through the door and I tried to catch her by the arm, since she wasn’t wearing any tunic I could grab, but I couldn’t get a solid hold, and then this voice deep as distant thunder said, 'Is there a problem?'
And I looked up — really up, Mother! And there was this face looking down at me with the most spectacular mustache and big dark eyes.
'She wouldn’t let me in,' I said, and I let the woman go. She ran off and left me face-to-face with this huge man — we’d have been nose to nose if he hadn’t been so tall.
'We don’t accept women as customers here,' he said. 'You could try Beautiful Phera’s Place, two doors down.'
'I’m not a customer,' I told him. 'If you have a complaint you can tell me,' he said. 'Though I don’t promise we’ll do anything about it.'
'It’s not a complaint, exactly,' I said, 'but I’d like to talk to you.'
He nodded, and led the way to a little room off to one side.
And while we were walking there I got a good look at two things.
One was the front room. It was amazing. Silk and velvet everywhere, and beads, and colored glass, all in reds and pinks and yellows.
And the other was the man I was talking to. Mother, he was taller than Father! And much broader. I’d never seen anyone close to that size before! He had lovely long black hair, and these long fingers, and that wonderful mustache. He was wearing a black velvet tunic worked with gold, and a black kilt, and he moved like a giant cat, Mother, it was just gorgeous.
Anyway, we went into this little room, which was very small, and pretty ordinary, with a little table and a couple of chairs, and we sat down, and he looked at me, didn’t say anything.
I couldn’t help asking, 'Why aren’t you in the Guard?'
He smiled at me. 'You must be new around here,' he said. 'Think about it. A guardsman — or guardswoman — has to be big and strong enough to stop a fight, preferably before it starts. You’ve probably seen a guardsman stop trouble just by standing up and frowning, or by walking in the door and shouting — guards hardly ever have to draw their swords.'
'I’ve done it myself,' I admitted.
'Well,' he said; 'this is Soldiertown. Most of the customers here are guardsmen. If they start trouble, Rudhira wants to have someone around who can stop guardsmen the way guardsmen stop ordinary tavern brawls. So she hired me.'
He wasn’t bragging, Mother. He turned up a palm, you know what I mean. He was just stating a fact.
'But wouldn’t you rather be in the Guard?' I asked.
He looked at me as if I had gone mad, then laughed.
'Rudhira pays better,' he said. 'And there are extras.'
'Oh,' I said, and then I realized what the extras probably were, and I blushed and said, 'Oh,' again.
'Some houses use magicians to handle trouble,' he said conversationally. 'After all, we all need to have the magicians in sometimes to make sure nobody catches anything, and some of the girls want magic to be sure they don’t get pregnant, so why not use them to keep things peaceful? But if a customer’s drunk enough he might not notice a magician right away, and magic takes time, and can go wrong — and besides, I cost more than a guardsman, but not as much as a wizard! So Rudhira keeps my brother and me around, and we make sure everything stays quiet and friendly and no one gets rough.' He leaned back, and asked, 'So why are you here?'
So I explained about how all my barracks mates would disappear every sixnight, and how tired I was of being left with nothing to do, and I asked why they all came here, instead of finding themselves women… I mean, finding women who aren’t professionals.
'Oh, it’s all part of showing off to each other that they’re real men,' Tabar said. 'They all come here because they can do it together, and show how loyal they all are to each other. The more stuff they do together, the more they trust each other when there’s trouble.'
I had to think about that for a while, but eventually I decided he was right. If one of the men went off with his own woman, he wouldn’t be as much a part of the company.
But of course, that meant that I wasn’t as much a part of the company.
I’d sort of noticed that, as I guess I told you, but I thought it was just because I was new, and not from the city, and of course partly because I was the only woman. I tried to fit in, and I did everything that everyone else did back at the barracks, all the jokes and games and arm wrestling and so on, and mostly it was okay, but I could feel that I wasn’t really accepted yet, and I thought it was just going to be a matter of time — but when Tabar explained that I realized that it wasn’t just that. The expeditions down to Whore Street were part of fitting in, and I
